Atlantis III (Beyond Atlantis 2) Review

Summary

Rating:

Overall:An average game, this does not equal its predecessor in any respects. May appeal to novice adventure gamers, but experienced adventures may tire of the slow-moving story and lack of character personality.

A lovely female adventurer -- an ancient time portal leading to who
knows where -- a power hungry villain -- a mysterious crystal skull
with a secret. While all of these elements could make for a great
adventure game, Atlantis III combines them into a mediocre
result. (DreamCatcher distributes the same game as Beyond Atlantis
2 in North America.) Players who expect this game to equal or
surpass its predecessor, Atlantis 2 (Beyond Atlantis), will be
sorely disappointed. And, again, the plot has nothing to do with the
Lost City of Atlantis.

The story begins as a young archeologist explores an area of the
desert that she believes is the location of ancient ruins. Even though
armed guards prevent her from entering the main encampment, it doesn't
take her long to find an unprotected cave in the rocky
hillside. Solving a puzzle unlocks a portal, which she eagerly enters,
to find herself transported to an ancient Egyptian crypt, complete
with hieroglyphics and a sarcophagus.

In first-person perspective, you play the female archeologist, without
a name. Also unnamed is the "man with the gun" who commands that you
find the secret inside a crystal skull that will supposedly give him
extreme power of some kind. Having no choice, you look deep into the
eye sockets of the skull. The liquid realm you find there holds the
secret for "one who is ready," and of course that will be you. In
addition to Egypt, you will visit a palace with an Arabian Nights
theme as well as a prehistoric era in the snow-covered Siberian
mountains.

First impressions are so important, and at the get-go, the one I got
of this game was not good. I have come to expect installation and
running problems while attempting to play games developed by Cryo
Interactive, and this one was no different. The issues were resolved
by disabling auto-run, lowering my acceleration properties, and
selecting the proper resolution in the options. Because my system has
its own quirks and an aging video card, other players may not
experience similar problems. Once I fine-tuned everything, the game
played without a hitch with no crashes or other problems.

Using a very simplistic point-and-click interface, there is virtually
no learning curve, so even a novice adventure gamer can get started
quickly. Up to five people can have games going at the same time, a
feature seen infrequently these days. Saving and loading games is
simple too, but you can't name your saved games, nor can you see the
thumbnail picture of your current location until you reload. Inventory
items are stored in a window below the main game screen, accessed with
a right click, and each object is given a brief name.

The three-dimensional graphical view allows you to look at every part
of each location by swinging your mouse around. When you click the
direction cursor, your position is snapped into place, thereby
eliminating the motion sickness I experienced in Atlantis
2. The scenery is beautifully drawn and realistic, and the video
cut-scenes are very well done. While the music is well-orchestrated
and provides background atmosphere, it is merely average.

Even though the plot itself sounds interesting enough, the game moved
along so slowly in the beginning that I was simply
bored. Conversations with other characters are blunt and short with
very little personality. Given the fact that there is little dialog,
the voice acting was only fair, at least in the English version. The
designers attempted to compensate for the lack of conversation by
introducing a comic character whose voice and attitude were more
irritating than entertaining. The characterization of the people is
fairly good, but their teeth and eyes had a strange look to them.
Even the main character sometimes looked cross-eyed. Not a good thing.

As you delve deeper in the game, it does get a little better, at least
as far as the puzzles go. Some important items are hidden so well in
the scenery that you may get stuck very early on. In my opinion, most
of the puzzles are easy with a scattering of some medium difficulty
ones. Most of them involve using objects, although a few involve
manipulating shapes and opening locks. A few of the puzzles are
completely random, so the solutions are different in every
game. There are also some arcade-like situations in which you must
throw an object precisely to hit a target.

There was nothing about this game that held my interest, but that's
not to say that it's a bad game, just not overly good. Its only saving
grace is the way in which the puzzles are presented, even though the
puzzles themselves are not hard. It is graphically and musically
pleasing, but the video and sound do not compensate enough for the
slow-moving story and lack of interesting dialog. In my opinion, this
sequel took quite a few steps backwards.